A “near perfect” farewell to So Many Dynamos | 08.12.23, Delmar Hall (with photo gallery)

Photo of Aaron Stovall of So Many Dynamos by Bryan J Sutter

I’m not really sure where to begin when describing So Many Dynamos. They started back in 2002 in a St. Louis suburb as a catchy midwestern emo rock outfit and by the mid-2010s had become something of an electro indie group with some surprisingly complex grooves and compositions. They had spent their early years touring as much as possible and had gained quite a respectful buzz and following. Their only “big” label release, 2009’s The Loud Wars on Vagrant Records, was (mostly) produced by Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, which was then unceremoniously massacred by a Pitchfork review written by someone who thought they were as least as half as clever as Buddyhead co-founder Travis Keller when it came to talking shit on someone else’s art but, to put it politely, they sure fucking weren’t. At that time, people would have played with room temperature mercury barehanded in traffic if Pitchfork said it were cool, so it is kind of a small miracle that So Many Dynamos didn’t break up, and instead decided to keep honing their craft.

Fourteen years later, So Many Dynamos decided to officially call it quits. For many years, their last show was opening up for Escort at Atomic Cowboy in 2017. Aside from a semi-secret warm-up set at The Sinkhole this past July, they hadn’t played out since. Life had gotten in the way. Speaking with the Post Dispatch the week before their farewell performance at Delmar Hall, frontman Aaron Stovall detailed that they had originally planned a final show for summer 2020, but that the pandemic had obviously made those plans impossible. We would have to wait until August 12th, 2023.

What transpired that evening was one of the few shows, in my many years of documenting live music, that I could consider to be near perfect.

“So Many Dynamos could have picked any band they wanted to open for them, and they picked us,” remarked Bo and the Locomotive frontman Bo Bulawsky partway through their set, with a tone that implied humbleness with a pinch of amusement. While it is true that So Many Dynamos could have asked anyone, Bo and the Locomotive made sense. They have also been around for a minute, have always put on a good show, and they were politely basking in a little bit of that Hollywood shine from their song “How Did You Get My Name?” going viral not just once but apparently twice on TikTok. Bo and his cohorts provided the right mid-tempo indie psyche vibes to start off the night, and received a delightful pop when OG drummer Steven Colbert hopped on stage to play on the exceptional “Heart” from the band’s 2020 release Everything Was Wild.

So Many Dynamos jumped in with the excellent “Barely Listening” and “Movement in Motion” from their 2015 record Safe With Sounds. Frontman and keyboardist Aaron Stovall, drummer Clayton “Norm” Kunstel, and guitarists Nathan Bernaix and Stephen Inman made up the initial lineup, with support from vocalists Kristin Dennis and Martha Mehring, as well as members of the Funky Butt Brass Band and Unity Quartet. It was a bit overwhelming keeping up with which supporting musicians played on which songs, so I recommend referencing the Post Dispatch article linked above for a total list of performers enlisted for the evening. From the first note, the crowd was stoked, but a bit reserved. It wasn’t until “Analysis Paralysis” (a personal favorite) that I noticed from the photo pit that the crowd was really starting to vibe. After the string of more recent songs, including their final single “Consider the Past,” founding members Ryan Ballew and Ryan Wasoba replaced Nathan Bernaix and Stephen Inman for “Airtight” and “Start this Party” from their first release, 2003’s Are We Not Drawn Onward to New Era? EP. It was then explained that tonight’s performance was being presented as three eras across two sets, and we just had entered the second era. Yes, there was a Taylor Swift joke.

It was here—now exploring tracks from their first album, 2004’s When I Explode—where everything hit a new level. Ryan Ballew has not played with So Many Dynamos since 2004. Ryan Wasoba left the band in June 2009, the same month that The Loud Wars came out, and did not play the album’s release show at The Firebird. It was evident between both Ryans, Aaron, and Norm that they were tapping into something previously dormant within themselves, a raw energy that shot through the room and seemed to pull everyone onto the same wavelength. As Wasoba darted around his side of the stage and banged on his sunburst Jazzmaster, the crowd began to bounce around as they sung along, with only a metal barricade separating these two forces resonating off each other. If this wasn’t already a party, it was now.

After a short break, set #2 began with “Saturday Night, Sunday Morning,” the opening banger from 2006’s Flashlights, which ensured that things picked up right where they left off. Guitarist Griffin Kay took the stage, marking the beginning of the third era. It was here, with what is probably So Many Dynamos’ most well-known lineup, that everything else started to melt away and that which myself and over 500 others were experiencing felt like the only thing in the world that mattered. There was a ferocity from the band that I cannot recall having ever seen before. Every chord change, every transition from verse to chorus, carried with it a tremendous impact. Aaron’s voice was as fiery and direct as I had ever heard it, and Norm’s drumming was ethereal, yet driven. This was Ryan Wasoba’s first time playing live any of the material from The Loud Wars, and his energy here was undeniable. Songs like “How High the Moon” and “The Formula” never sounded so sharp and powerful. As the second set ended with a climatic performance of “Progress” and “New Bones,” things had gone beyond nostalgia or a reliving of better times, this was an explosive statement that carried over into the encore, which finished with over a dozen musicians performing “Search Party” like it was the last bit of music they were ever going to play. As the song winded down, under a lilac hue, all the musicians gathered at the front of the stage and joined the crowd in singing the chorus one last time.

It was an emotional moment, one full of glory and triumph, of exceptional musicianship and heart, and the closing of so many stories. In a music scene that is often just as much defined by its tenacity as it is its own sense of self-loathing, So Many Dynamos were always an example of what a band from St. Louis could achieve. Here, with their final performance, they gave a glimpse of the present we can still have. | Bryan J Sutter